Flying Scotsman Visits My Town

by cofty 30 Replies latest social current

  • GrreatTeacher
    GrreatTeacher

    Cofty, I will tell him. He is pleased beyond belief when his knowledge can compete in the adult world.

    He had so many issues when he was little, but we've worked through them and it looks like he's turning out fine.

    My philosophy on childrearing is: help them find their passion, support it, and they will thrive!

  • cofty
    cofty
    he might be able to get a real job with a real railroad like CSX when he turns 21.

    That would be amazing!

    He would love the restoration sheds at York, England.

  • GrreatTeacher
    GrreatTeacher

    Oh, I'm sure he would. We'll put the York restoration sheds on our bucket list.

    He's managed to extract a promise that when he graduates high school, we'll take him to the UK for a grand railroad tour.

    Now, I've just got to figure out how to pay for it!

  • cofty
    cofty
    Well if you make it to Berwick the coffee is on me.
  • GrreatTeacher
    GrreatTeacher
    Thanks. I'll definitely hold you to that!
  • stan livedeath
    stan livedeath
    @Stan,

    Thanks a lot for mentioning that.

    Now I felt compelled to look up what "blinkers" are on steam engine, and what the difference is between German style and others, and invenstigated the biography of Richard Paul Wagner who designed the blinkers you like.

    so now i go into "rivet counter" mode.

    those smoke deflectors are actually " Witte" type--whereas "Wagner" type are somewhat larger.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_deflectors

    sorry--i'll shut up and go home now.

  • Prefect
    Prefect
    They used to have a club for rail enthusiasts called "the Rail Riders"

    It was disbanded in 1991.

  • Anders Andersen
    Anders Andersen

    @stan,

    Thanks for pointing that out. Evidently I didn't pay enough attention to the differences between those two. The Witte type blinkers are much more elegant than the Wagner type btw.

    Don't sweat the rivet counter mode; I love details like that and am a bit ashamed I failed to bluff myself into the steam engine lovers society :-D

    But during my Sunday afternoon Wikipedia railroad journey I learnt a lot about British railroads, steam engines, blowback (the Flying Scotsman had an incident as recent as 2012, semaphores, etc.

    And I had some time to spare: my wife was at the circuit assembly :-p

    Oh but now I'm wondering what British blinker design would look like....Wikipedia here I come....

  • stan livedeath
  • Anders Andersen
    Anders Andersen
    Are those the British? Looks a lot like Wagner to me...but apparently world wide blinkers were variants of either Wagner or Witte designs, so that makes sense.

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